Lipstick follows the same three properties as the rest of your palette. Temperature decides whether your shades are blue-based or warm-based. Depth decides how dark they go. Clarity decides how vivid they are and how much shine they can carry. The chart below turns that into an everyday shade, a pink or berry, a statement shade and a finish for each of the twelve seasons.
Lipstick sits right on your face, so it acts like a small, concentrated drape. If you don’t know your season yet, start with the Color Season Quiz.
How a season translates to lipstick
- Temperature: cool seasons wear pinks and reds with blue in them (rose, raspberry, cherry); warm seasons wear ones with yellow or orange in them (coral, peach, terracotta, brick).
- Depth: Light seasons stay light to medium; Deep seasons can go as dark as burgundy, brick and aubergine.
- Clarity: the Bright seasons, True Winter and True Spring wear clean, saturated shades; Soft seasons look best when the color is slightly grayed or browned.
All twelve seasons
| Season | Everyday | Pink or berry | Statement | Finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light Spring | Peach-pink | Warm pink | Light coral | Sheer, gloss |
| True Spring | Peach | Coral-pink | Poppy, coral | Satin, gloss |
| Bright Spring | Warm pink | Bright pink | Hot coral, clear poppy | Gloss, high shine |
| Light Summer | Powder pink | Soft cool pink | Light rose | Sheer, soft satin |
| True Summer | Rose | Soft berry | Raspberry | Satin, cream |
| Soft Summer | Mauve | Dusty rose | Dusty rose-red | Matte, soft satin |
| Soft Autumn | Warm rose-brown | Salmon | Terracotta | Matte, soft satin |
| True Autumn | Caramel, warm peach-brown | Warm coral-brown | Rust, tomato | Satin, cream |
| Deep Autumn | Rose-brown | Brick-rose | Brick, aubergine | Cream, satin |
| Deep Winter | Plum-rose | Deep berry | Burgundy, cranberry | Cream, satin |
| True Winter | Cool pink | Fuchsia | True red | Cream, gloss |
| Bright Winter | Sheer hot pink | Hot pink | True red, bright cherry | Gloss, high shine |
The statement column matches the reds in the right red for every season, which explains how to find yours with two lipsticks. For the everyday column, nude lipstick for your undertone goes deeper on matching your own lip color.
Finish: the overlooked part
Shine is a form of clarity. A glossy lip reflects bright highlights, so it reads crisp and vivid; a matte lip absorbs light and reads softer. That makes finish part of your season, not just a texture preference.
Bright seasons can wear high shine without it looking harsh. Soft seasons usually look more at ease in matte or soft satin, even in the right color. Light seasons suit sheer color that lets the lip show through, and Deep seasons suit fully pigmented cream that holds its depth.
The daylight lip test
Choose two shades from neighboring rows, for example True Summer’s raspberry and Soft Summer’s dusty rose-red. Apply one, stand at a window in daylight and look at your skin from arm’s length. Then switch.
The right shade makes your skin look even and your eyes clearer, and the lipstick looks like part of your face. The wrong one shows up as a gray or yellow cast around the mouth, more visible redness on the cheeks, or a lip that looks pasted on. If one shade passes and the other doesn’t, you have also learned something about your season.
Between two seasons
If you sit between two seasons, the safest lipsticks are the ones they share. Sister seasons share one trait, so their shades overlap: Soft Summer and Soft Autumn can both wear a muted rose-brown, while Deep Winter and Deep Autumn meet at a deep berry-brown. Use the shared shades daily and test the statement shades of each side when you want more color.